“Count your blessings.”
This was something I heard my mother tell me frequently as I was growing up. “Remember Jillian, you need to count your blessings!” I can remember countless conversations where I was upset with a friend from school, or was acting stubborn because something wasn’t going my way and all I could seemingly focus on was the negative. Then came my mother, “Don’t get so stuck on what is going wrong. Rather, look for what’s going right!” Through clenched teeth I would muster, “I’m so glad our plans changed.”
Admittedly, more often than not I did not change my perspective. I remained grumpy and upset. I pouted through my grandma’s birthday instead of getting to go to my friend’s house to play. However, as I’ve grown, I still hear my mother’s wise advice as I face a frustrating moment. Plans change, a relational conflict arises, or discontentment deepens in my ungrateful heart. “Count your blessings.”
I’m almost certain these are words you’ve heard before, too. Perhaps the song begins to play in your mind. Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your blessings, see what God has done. While the helpful phrase may be familiar, it is surely easier said than done. It’s a habit that has to be developed. It does not simply come over night, but has to be practiced so that when the crossroads come, we’re able to shift our gaze back to the Lord.
Paul David Tripp says counting your blessings is “looking for God’s presence, God’s grace, God’s blessing, God’s help, God’s provision, God’s protection in your life.” It’s seeking to find God and His goodness in everything around us. It’s turning our gaze from its natural inward bend, to rather outwardly acknowledge where all of our help comes from. In other words, it’s worship.
This summer our pastors are preaching through the Psalms. Perhaps you’ve joined our church body in the Bible reading plan and are reading through the Psalms in your personal time as well. While we haven’t quite reached this Psalm yet in our reading plan, Psalm 66 holds twenty instructional verses on how to become “blessing counters.” I encourage you to read it yourself and allow the Lord to show you Truth in these verses. However, I would like to highlight just a few.
Verses 1-4 tell us to shout joyful praises to God. Sing to Him of His glory-but also tell the world! May our lips repeat the wonderful things He has done for us! Verse 5 invites us to come and see what the Lord has done. We can only share of His greatness if we’re seeking to find it. In your quiet moments (and in the busy ones too) are you looking for what God is doing? Are you searching to see His hand of goodness in your day? Even in the hardest moments, can you find God present? His Word promises He’s always with us! Can you see His good works?
The practice of counting my blessings has not been one of my recent strengths. I am too easily caught up in the negative and become surrounded by discontentment. The thoughts running through my head are complaints, which in turn become sour words spoken to those around me. I’m back to acting like the child I was twenty years ago- pouting my way through life.
The Lord has been convicting my complaint-filled heart and showing me how miserable it is to live in discontentment. I must shift my gaze back to the author of our lives and the giver of all things good. The antidote for my ungrateful heart is to follow as Psalm 66 says: “Say to God, ‘How awesome are Your deeds!’” and “Come and see what our God has done, what awesome miracles He performs for people!” When my mind is consumed with praising God for all He has blessed me with, there isn’t space for complaints! When I’m busy singing praise to our Father or sharing with a friend how good our God is, there isn’t time for grumbling.
I’m grateful for my mother's words, Psalm 66, and the hymn that sings its tune through my thoughts. How will you count your blessings today? Who will you tell what God has done?
In His Grace,
Jillian Hart